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feFSSRal ReQsIleQiiiSRS 



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¥i©KsbuFg GampaigH. 



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PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 

OF THE 

VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN, 

A Paper Read Before the 

OHIO COMMANDERY 

OK THE 

MILITARY ORDER 



OF THE 



LDYALLEMiiillTEDSTiTES. 



BY COMPANION 



MANNING F. FORCE, 

Late Brigadier General. Brevet Vajor 
General U. S. Volunteers. 



JANUARY 7.1885. 



CIVCIXXATI: 






PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 



ViCKSBURG Campaign. 



Oil the 22d of February, 1863, Logan's Division em- 
barked at Memphis, and next da)' landed at Lake Providence, 
above Millikin's Bend. I commanded the 20th Ohio, in 
Leggett's Brigade, Logan's Division. Lake Providence is a 
portion of a former bed of. .the river, left by a change in its 
course. The bank of the -^^e was bordered b}- live-oaks, 
trailing with gray moss-anxigg^th -glistening magnolias. We 
camped in an old cotton-field. The ground was so wet that 
every tent had a board floor, and most had an extension of 
the floor in front, making a porch. The lake gave bathing 
and fish, and at evenings the band would play on a batteau 
sailing on the water. It was an ideal camp. 

About a week or less after their arrival a furious can- 
nonade was heard in the night in the direction of Vicksburg. 
Li a few days we learned the cause. On the night of the 
2d of P^bruary the ram Queen of the West had run by the 
batteries of Vicksburg and Warrenton ; but it shortly after 
ran aground in the Red River, and was captured. On the 
night of the 13th the iron-clad Indianola, with its heavy 
armament of two i i-inch and two 9-inch guns, ran by. But, 
on the night of the 24th, it was attacked by the Queen of 
the West and another ram, aided by two smaller boats. The 
Indianola, leaking from the blows of the rams, began to sink, 



— 4— 

surrendered, and was towed near the shore, a few miles be- 
low Vicksburg, and grounded in ten feet of water. The 
enemy had control of the river below the city. 

Some soldiers, taking an empty barge, placed on it 
barrels, in the likeness of smokestacks, and a hogshead for 
a turret, and set it afloat at 3 a. m. The semblance of a 
monitor, in the gloom of night, slowly passed by the bat- 
teries. All the guns of Vicksburg opened upon it. It 
could not sink, and placidly floated on. It rounded the 
point at daybreak, just as the Queen of the West was 
coming up stream. The appearance of a monitor in the 
Mississippi was too much. The Queen of the West, with 
its consort ram, turned down stream, took refuge in the 
Red River, and never returned to the Mississippi. The 
harmless barge, carried by an eddy to the lower mouth of 
the canal, rested there, just two-and-a-half miles from the In- 
dianola. A working party, busied in raising the iron-clad, 
watched uneasily the stranger. Some soldiers of the 15th 
Corps pushed the barge out into the current. The working 
party, seeing a monitor coming for them, set the Indianola 
on fire and blew it up, and the river below the city was again 
free. 

The 20th was not engaged in any of the bayou expedi- 
tions. But when Sherman w^as up Steele's Bayou extricating 
Porter's gun-boats, we were sent from the Mississippi across 
the country at a point where the ba\'ou comes near to the 
river, and had a slight taste of that service. We picked 
and slopped our way over the submerged land to the bayou, 
and to where we found little protruding hummocks of earth, 
on which we could huddle in groups out of the water. There 
we squatted two days, when news was brought that the gun- 
boats were released, and we returned. 

About the 20th of April, I was sent, with the 20th Ohio 
and the 30th Illinois seven miles out from Millikin's Bend to 
build a road across a swamp. When the sun set the leaves 
of the forest seemed to exude smoke, and the air became a 
saturated solution of c^nats. When mv mess sat down to 



— 5- 

supper under a tree the gnats got into our mouths, noses, 
eyes and ears. They swarmed upon our necks, seeming to 
encircle them with bands of hot iron. Tortured and blinded, 
we could neither eat nor see. We got a quantity of cotton 
and made a circle around the group, and set it on fire. The 
pungent smoke made water stream from our eyes, but drove 
the gnats away. We then supped in anguish, but in peace. 
I sent back to camp and got some musquito netting from a 
suttlcr. Covering my head with many folds I slept, waking 
at intervals to burn a wad of cotton. Many of the men set 
by the fire all night fighting the gnats, and slept next day. 

In the woods we found stra^ cattle, sheep and hogs. A 
large pond was full of fish. We lived royally. Here the 
men first saw alligators. A soldier, a farmer-boy, told his 
first experience. He said he was standing by the pond when 
he saw a long, monstrous mouth, lined with teeth, rise from 
the water. Then the scaly monster appeared, saw him, came 
ashore and made for him. He climbed a tree. The creature 
crawled around the tree, snapping its jaws and beating the 
earth with its tail, till, a group of soldiers coming up, it re- 
treated to the water. 

On the night of April i6, the gunboats passed down, 
under a cannonade that shook the earth. It was necessary 
at least to attempt to send transports down Avith supplies. 
The crews of the steamboats were unwilling to fioat their frail 
vessels along the face of the batteries which lined the shore 
for miles. Soldiers, mainly from Logan's division, volunteer- 
ed to serve as deck-hands, firemen, engineers, pilots and cap- 
tains. Six steamboats, and towing twelve barges, were so 
manned and started on through the gauntlet of fire on the 
night of the 22d. Bonfires along the shore lighted up the river. 
Miles of artillery thundered at the helpless vessels. But 
only one was sunk — the rest passed through. 

On the 25th April, Logan's division marched. The 20th 
Ohio had just drawn new clothing, but had to leave it behind. 
Stacking spades and picks in the swamp, they took their 
place in the column as it appeared, taking with them only the 



— 6— 

scanty supplies they had there. Six clays of plodding brought 
them over nearly seventy miles to the shore of the river op- 
posite Bruinsburg. I find in one of my letters "we marched 
six miles one day, and those six miles by evening were strewn 
with wrecks of w'agons and their loads, and half buried guns. 
At a halt of some hours, the men stood in deep mud, for 
want of any means of sitting. Yet when we halted at night, 
every man answered to his name and weni laughing to bed 
on the sloppy ground." 

Troops were ferried across the river to a narrow strip of 
bottom-land which intervened between the river and the lofty, 
precipitous bluff. A roadway, walled in with high vertical 
banks, cut through the bluff, led from the river bottom up to 
the table land above. A small force could have held this pass 
against an army ; but it was left unguarded, and the army 
marched up. 

The 13th corps was in advance. Our brigade did not 
reach the field of Port Gibson till the battle was over ; but 
was sent in the dark of early night a few miles in pur- 
suit of the retreating force. All through the campaign, the 
army always marched over and beyond the field of battle before 
halting for the night. 

The morning of 3d of May, the 17th corps marched north 
towards Hankinson's Ferry. At Willow Springs, Lieut. 
Maury of Gen. Bowen's staff was captured, and it appeared 
there was a force in our front. The corps halted, deployed, 
reconnoitred. Our brigade, commanded b}^ Gen. Dennis, 
Gen. Leggett being away on leave of absence, was detached 
and marched west towards Grand Gulf. Gen. Grant and Gen. 
Rawlins as well as Gen Logan, accompanied the brigade. 
About noon, we began to pick up stragglers of the enemy 
and learned that Grand Gulf had been evacuated and the gar- 
rison was crossing the Big Black at Hankinson's Ferry. 
Grant^and Rawlins pushed on to Grand Gulf, to communicate 
with the fleet and to establish a shorter line to his base. The 
brigade, finding a road leading to the north of east, made 
a sharp turn and pushed for the ferry. The men became ex- 



hausted. The captain of the leading company told his men to 
halt. I told him to move on, the General was unwilling to halt 
yet. I heard asoldier think aloud, rather than say, "he must be 
a hard-heartedman." When we halted for a short rest, though 
the men were famished for water, not one had strength to go 
to the bottom of the hill to a large spring. The mounted order- 
lies, and men mounted on officers' horses, gathered up can- 
teens and brought water. The march resumed, brought us 
after our long detour back into the main road in front of the 
corps which was cautiously feeling its way. 

I was standing with McPherson, Logan and Dennis when 
we reached the road, and McPherson said, "Gen Logan, you 
will direct Gen. Dennis to send a regiment forward with 
skirmishers well advanced, rapidly towards the Ferry." 
Gen. Logan said, "Gen. Dennis, you will send a regiment 
forward with skirmishers well advanced, rapidly towards the 
Ferry." Gen. Dennis said, "Col. Force, you will take your reg- 
iment forward with skirmishers well advanced, rapidly towards 
the Ferry." The men forgot their fatigue, quickly pushed 
over the few intervening miles and reached the Ferry just in 
time to drive away a party of the enemy that was chopping 
away the floating bridge a cross the river. 

A few days later, all captured wagons were sent to the 
rear to bring up rations, and all army wagons, except some 
at brigade and superior headquarters, to bring up amunition. 
The regiments had no transportation or tents. I used to try 
to put the 20th in such position at night that there would be 
a tree in the rear under which I could sleep. I impressed a 
number of mules and mounted three squads of men, each un- 
der command of a sergeant. The surgeon was authorized to 
dismount any man, and put in his place a man who was ex- 
hausted, or foot-sore — so there was no straggling. When 
we halted on the march for rest, the squads gathered up can- 
teens and got water ; so no man left the ranks. And the mules 
carried officers' blankets. 

On the i2thof May, the 17th corps marched on the road 
toward Raymond, Logan's division leading, Dennis' brigade 



— S— 

in advance. The 30th Illinois was deployed with a skirmish 
line in front, on the left of the road, the 20th Ohio in like 
manner on the right. About noon we halted ; the 20th 
Ohio in an open field, bounded by a fence to the front, be- 
yond which was forest and rising ground. An unseen bat- 
ter)' on some height beyond the timber began shelling the 
field. The 20th advanced over the fence into the woods. 
Another brigade came up and formed on our right. 

All at once the woods rang with the shrill rebel yell, and 
a deafening din of musketry. The 20th rushed forward to a 
creek and used the farther bank as a breastwork. The timber 
between the creek and the fence was free from undergrowth; 
The 20th Illinois, the regiment next to the right of the 20th 
Ohio, knelt down in place and returned the fire. The enemy 
advanced into the creek in its front. I went to the lieutenant- 
colonel, who was kneeling at the left flank, and asked him 
why he did not advance into the creek. He said "we have 
no orders." In a few minutes the colonel of the regiment 
was killed. It was too late to advance, it was murder to re- 
main ; and the lieutenant-colonel withdrew the regiment in 
order back behind the fence. I cannot tell how long the 
battle lasted. I remember noticing the forest leaves, cut by 
rifle balls, falling in thick eddies, still as snow flakes. At 
one time the enemy in our front advanced to the border of 
the creek, and rifles of opposing lines crossed while firing. 
Men who were shot were burned by the powder of the rifles 
that sped the balls. 

In time the fire in front slackened. We ceased fire and 
advanced. The ground rose into a hill beyond the creek ; 
dead and wounded were found where they had fallen or 
crawled behind trees and logs. We emerged into open 
ground upon a hill top, and were greeted by cheers of the 
brigade at the crossing of the creek below. The enemy was 
in retreat. A battery covering its rear opened fire upon us, 
I made the men lie down behind a ridge, and the exploding 
shells sprinkled them with earth while the first sergeants 
were making out reports of casualties. Notwithstanding the 



admirable protection of the bank of the creek, twenty per 
cent, of the regiment were killed and wounded. 

Soon the column advanced. We fell into place when it 
came up, and were halted on the hither side of Raymond. In 
a few minutes the earth was sparkling with fires, over which 
coffee was making in tin cups and little chunks of salt pork 
were broiling. The sweet savor told that supper was nearly 
ready, when order came to march through the town and go 
on picket on the farther side. Every man picked up his 
smoking cup, and the stick which bore his sizzling bit of pork, 
and we incensed the town with savory odor as we marched 
through. 

I used often to hear it said that the western army could 
fight, but had no discipline. It had so much of discipline as 
is comprised in obedience to orders, and that is the cream of 
discipline. On the 14th of May, two days after the battle 
of Raymond, was the battle of Jackson. The 20th Ohio 
was assigned to the duty of defending the trains from some 
apprehended attack. I was informed that a soldier had mis- 
behaved at the battle of Raymond — in a matter of no mo- 
ment, except that it was a breach of discipline. I consti- 
tuted myself a court martial, being the only field officer then 
with the regiment. I heard the case and passed sentence 
while the man stood beside my horse, and leaning over the 
saddle to screen a bit of paper from the driving rain, wrote 
the record in lead psncil. The orderly who at once took it 
to brigade headquarters, brought it back approved. 

Two days after, on the i6th, as we were marching to at- 
tack Pemberton's army on Champion's Hill, the 17th corps 
found the road entirely blocked up with the train of Hovey's 
division. An order removed the wagons out of the way, 
jammed them against the trees that lined the road, and gave 
free passage for troops. 

Champion's Hill is a considerable eminence about a mile 
across, I should think, from east to west. It is steep, its 
sides are roughened by knobs, gullied by ravines, and cov- 
ered with forest. Low flat land encircles the north an west 



—10— 

faces. Hovey, following the rocid, attacked the north tast 
face; Logan's division, following, debouched upon the low- 
land north of the hill. The 20th Ohio, being in advance, 
deployed, marched near to the base of the hill, and lay down 
to wait till sucessivc regiments should arri\-e and form the. 
line. A part of the enemy's force high up on the hill, just 
in prolongation of the line of the regiment, kept up a drop- 
ping fire, and ever)' few minutes a soldier would rise bleeding 
and be ordered back to the hospital to have his wound dressed. 
There was in front of the line a large and very tall stump. 
The adjutant and I, sending our horses away, stood behind 
this stump and observed that its shelter made a species of 
shadow of the fire. We found we could pace to and fro fift\' 
yards, keeping in line with the stump, and while the rifle 
balls rattled against the stump and whistled by our sides, we 
were shielded. 

By the time the line was formed, a hostile line advanced 
from the timber at the base of the hill to confront us. \ye 
charged, pushed them into the timber and up the slope, and 
took position in a ravine parallel with a ravine in which the 
enemy in our front halted. The firing was very heavy ; a 
staff officer, who came to make some inquiries, all the time 
he was talking to me, involuntarily and unconscioush', 
screened his eyes with one hand, as one would shield his 
eyes from a driving rain. When our ammunition was about 
exhausted, a heavy force appeared in our front. The line 
gave evidences of a readiness to recoil ; symptoms of waver- 
ing began to appear in one company of the 20th Ohio; but 
an order to fix bayonets steadied the men, and the regiment 
stood at support arms, with a line of steel bristling above the 
edge of the ravine. Fortunately for us, the force we saw was 
a fresh division, going to reinforce Pemberton's line where it 
was shattered by Hovey's victorious assault. 

McPherson kept extending his line to his right, till 
Pemberton's line of retreat was endangered, and his army, 
abandoning the field, pushed in disorder for Vicksburg. As 
soon as we halted for the night bivouac, report of casual- 



—11— 

ties was called for. My report included two men missing. 
The report had not long gone to brigade headquarters when 
I learned that the two men had been sent with wounded to 
the field hospital, and were temporarily detained there by the 
commanding officer. I sent to brigade headquarters to cor- 
rect my report. It was too late ; it had already gone on to 
division headquarters. It has always been a sore point that 
this report of two missing remains in the records of the war; 
for the}' are the only missing reported of the 20th Ohio at 
any time in the Vicksburg campaign. 

Ne.xt da}-, the 17th, Carr's Division of McClernand's 
Corps, by a splendid charge, carried the fortified bridge-head 
at the crossing of the Big Black River, and captured 1,751 
men and fifteen guns. The bridges, saturated with combus- 
tibles, were burned, and the three corps spent the day build- 
ing bridges across the river at different points. Sherman 
began crosing in the night ; the rest of the army crossed next 
day. Pemberton abandoned Haines' Bluff, and withdrew his 
entire force within the defenses of Vicksburg. Haines' 
Bluff was seized, and we were once more in close communi. 
nication with the North. 

In eighteen days Grant had marched 200 miles, won five 
battles, four of them in six days, inflicted a loss of 5,000 
killed, wounded, and missing, captured eighty-eight pieces of 
artiller}-, compelled the abandonment of all outworks, and 
cooped Pemberton's army within the lines of Vicksburg; 
while he had opened for himself easy and safe communication 
with the North. During these eighteen days the men had 
been without shelter, and had subsisted on five days' rations. 
The morning we crossed the Big Black I offered five dollars 
for a small piece of cornbread, ;ind could not get it. The 
soldier said bread was worth more to him than money. Four 
thousand five hundred prisoners, who had been gathered on 
the way, were shipped north from Haines' Bluff, and the 
army sat down to the siege. Stretched in a thin line, the 
army lacked several miles of covering the front of the 
besieged works. 



—12— 

We lost 4,000 killed and wounded in the assaults of the 
iQth and 22d of May. On the 22d of May the 20th Ohio 
moved in support of the first brigade of Logan's Divi- 
sion. The brigade reached the base of an earthwork, too 
high and steep to be scaled, and could neither advance nor 
retreat. The 20th was placed in a road-cut, which was enfil- 
aded by one of the enemy's infantry intrechments. But by 
sitting with our backs pressed against the side of the cut 
toward Vicksburg, the balls whistled by just outside of our 
knees. At sunset the company cooks were possessed to 
come to us with hot coffee. They succeeded in running the 
gauntlet, and the garrison could hear the jingling of tincups 
and shouts of laughter as the cramped men ate their supper. 

After dark we were recalled and placed on the slope of a 
sharp ridge, with orders to remain in place, read}' to move 
at any moment, and with strict injunction not to allow any 
man's head to appear above the ridge. There we lay t^\•o or 
three days in line. Coffee was brought to us by the cooks 
at meal times. Not a man those two or three da}-s left the 
line so much as ten feet without a special order. The first 
night the captain of the right company reported that the 
slope was so steep where he was that the men, as soon as 
they fell asleep, began to roll down hill. I had to give him 
leave to shift his position. 

When lying there it sometimes occurred to me, what a 
transformation it was for these men, full of individuality and 
self-reliance, accustomed alwa}-s to act upon their own will, 
to so completely subordinate their wills to the wills of other 
men, many of them their neighbors and friends at home. 
Rut their practical sense had told them that an army differs 
from a mob only in discipline, and discipline was necessar\' 
for their self-preservation. They had also soon perceived 
that military obedience is a duty enjoined by law, and, in 
obeying orders, they were obeying the law ; and, besides, 
their enthusiasm and fire came from the feeling that, like the 
crusaders of old, they were engaged in a sacred cause. 

One day when there was a general bombardment, I was 



—13 — 

told a soldier wished to see me. Under the canopy of ex- 
ploding shells and shrieking balls I found a youth, a boy, 
lying on his back on the ground. He was pale and speech- 
less — there was a crimson hole in his breast. As I knelt 
by his side he looked wistfully at me. I said: " We must 
all die some time, and the m.an is happy who meets death in 
the discharge of dutv. You have done }our whole duty 
well." It was all he wanted. His eyes brightened, a smile 
flickered on his lips, and I was kneeling beside a corpse. 

In June, Gen. Blair was sent on a reconnoisance up be- 
tween the Big Black and the Yazoo. Leggett's Brigade (for 
Gen. Leggett had returned from his absence and resumed 
command of his brigade on the morning of the battle of 
Champion's Hill) was in the expedition. One day, when the 
20th Ohio was in advance, we came; at a tiu-n in the road, 
upon two old colored people, man and woman, plump and 
sleek, riding mules and coming toward us. As they caught 
sight of the long column of blue coats the woman, crossing 
her hands upon her bosom, rolled up her e}'es and cried in 
ecstacy, " I^ress de Lord! Bress Almighty God! Our 
friends is come, our friends is come!" On the return we 
crossed a plantation where the field-hands were ploughing. 
The soldiers liked mules, and the negroes gladly unharnessed 
them and helped the soldiers to mount. I said to one, "The 
soldiers are taking your mules." The quick response was, 
"An' dey is welcome to 'em, sar ; dey is welcome to 'em." 
Men and women looked wistfully at the marching column, 
and began to talk about joining us. They seemed to wait 
the determination of a gray-headed darkey who was consid- 
ering. Presently there was a shout, " Uncle Pete 's a gwine, 
an' I'm a gwine, too ! " As they flocked after us one tall, stern 
woman strode along carrying a wooden tray and a crockery 
pitcher as all her effects, looking straight to the front. Some 
one asked, "Auntie, where are you going to?" She an- 
swered without looking, " I don't car whicher way I go so I 
git away from dis yer place." 

On returning to the lines Gen. Leggett was transferred 



—14— 

to command the First Brigade, and I was assigned to his 
vacated place. The saps were made wide and deep enough 
for the passage of artillery, and batteries were constructed 
• lear the besieged works. Gen. Ransom had a battery so 
close that the embrasures were kept covered by mantelets. 
A gun would be loaded and pointed and then fired just as the 
mantelet was removed. The first time a gun was fired from 
it a storm of rifle balls poured through the embrasure. A 
gunner jumped on the gun and shouted back, "Too late! " 

When the working parties carried the .saps to the base 
of the works, the besieged used to light the fuses of 6-pound 
shells and toss them over the parapet. They would roll down 
among the working parties and explode, sometimes doing- 
serious damage. A young soldier of Company C, 20th Ohio, 
named Friend, on detached service in the division pioneer 
corps, devised wooden mortars. A very small charge of 
powder in one of these would just lift a shell over the enemy's 
parapet and drop it within. These shells caused much per- 
plexity and annoyance. After the surrender there was much 
inquiry from the garrison how they were contrived. 

At night it was common practice for the pickets on both 
sides to advance unarmed, and sitting together on the ground 
between the lines pass the night in chat, banter and high dis- 
cussion. A watch was always left in the lines, and when an 
officer on either side came along on his tour, warning was 
given, the conference ceased and the men on both sides 
slipped back to their places. When day came work was 
resumed. In the latter part of the siege there was little 
desultory firing. The men lay with patient, scrutinizing gaze 
and rifles aimed, and whenever any object appeared above 
the works on either side a volley of balls whistled by or 
through it. Private Ruggles of Company H, 20th Ohio, 
who performed important service through the war as a spy, 
was presented by Gen. Grant with a Henry rifle. Being de- 
tached from the regiment he spent his time along the lines 
sharpshooting. He would sometimes visit the regiment to 
tell of his exploits. But one day he came to me quite de- 



—15— 

jected, and said, in lugubrious tones, "Colonel, I aint had 
no kind of luck to-day. I haint killed a feller." 

There was much speculation and discussion about cer- 
tain small, explosive sounds that were heard, Gen. Ran- 
som and others maintained they were caused by explosive 
bullets. Gen. Logan and others scouted the idea. One day, 
one struck the ground and exploded at Ransom's feet. Pick- 
ing up the exploded shell of a rifle ball, he settled the ques- 
tion. After the siege, many such explosive rifle balls, 
which had not been used were picked up on former camp 
grounds of the enemy. 

When Gen. Sherman was put in command of an army 
of observation to guard our rear against Johnston, my bri- 
gade was temporarily attached to McArthur's division in 
Sherman's command. The siege went on. Hundreds of 
cannon ceaselessly roared. Small arms sheeted over the space 
between the lines with lead. Rifle balls met in the air and 
fell to the ground welded together One such pair was sent 
by Gen. Grant to Washington ; another picked up by a sol- 
dier of the 78th Ohio, is in the colletion of the Historical So- 
ciety in Cincinnati. 

When Logan's second mine was sprung, the end of the 
siege was obviously at hand. Negotiations silenced the com- 
bat on the 3d of July. The strange silence was oppressive. 
It seemed a boding silence. On the 4th of July, the fortress 
capitulated ; the garrison marched out and stacked arms. 
31,000 men and 172 pieces of artillery were surrendered. 

The same day Sherman moved against Johnston. In a 
few days we heard that also on the 4th of July, Prentiss had 
bloodily repulsed an assault on Helena, and Lee had with- 
drawn from the dread field of Gettysburg. A week after 
Vicksburg, Port Hudson surrendered and the Mississippi was 
open to the sea. The crisis of the war was over. The end 
was in sight. To reach it required m.uiy days of toil, tri- 
bulation and endurance ; but victory was in the air; the tri- 
umph of the Nation was assured. 



